Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Ars Technica reports:
In a Black Mirror-esque turn, some cash-strapped actors who didn’t fully understand the consequences are regretting selling their likenesses to be used in AI videos that they consider embarrassing, damaging, or harmful.
Among them is a 29-year-old New York-based actor, Adam Coy, who licensed rights to his face and voice to a company called MCM for one year for $1,000 without thinking, “am I crossing a line by doing this?”
His partner’s mother later found videos where he appeared as a doomsayer from the future predicting disasters.
Agence France-Presse reports:
South Korean actor Simon Lee was stunned when he saw his likeness — at times as a gynecologist or a surgeon — being used to promote questionable health cures on TikTok and Instagram.
He is one of scores of people who have licensed their image to artificial intelligence marketing companies, and then ended up with the unpleasant surprise of seeing themselves feature in deepfakes, dubious adverts or even political propaganda.
“If it was a nice advertisement, it would’ve been fine to me. But obviously it is such a scam,” he said, adding that the terms of his contract prevented him from getting the videos removed.
The Guardian reports:
A $2bn (£1.6bn) British startup that uses artificial intelligence to generate realistic avatars has struck a licensing deal with the stock footage firm Shutterstock to help develop its technology.
Synthesia will pay the US-based Shutterstock an undisclosed sum to use its library of corporate video footage to train its latest AI model. It expects that incorporating the clips into its model will produce even more realistic expressions, vocal tones and body language from the avatars.
Synthesia uses human actors to generate digital avatars of people, which are then deployed by companies in corporate videos in a range of scenarios such as advising on cybersecurity, calculating water bills and how to communicate better at work. Its UK clients include Lloyds Bank and British Gas.
According to the first report above, a British actor who signed with Synthesia found himself in a propaganda video promoting the president of Burkina Faso who took power in a coup.
Regrets: Actors who sold AI avatars stuck in Black Mirror-esque dystopia https://t.co/dKGR8z7BcS
— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) April 18, 2025